The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers
to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is
provided by the
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you
manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can
be found on the NDLTD website.

This thesis concentrates on the emerging field of interactive documentaries. Digital interactive and networked media offer so many new possibilities to document reality that it is necessary to define what an interactive documentary is and whether there is any continuity with the linear documentary form. This research therefore proposes a definition of interactive documentaries and a taxonomy of the genre based on the idea of modes of interaction – where types of interactions are seen as the fundamental differentiator between interactive documentaries. Interactivity gives an agency to the user – the power to physically “do something”, whether that be clicking on a link, sending a video or re-mixing content - and therefore creates a series of relations that form an ecosystem in which all parts are interdependent and dynamically linked. It is argued that this human-computer system has many of the characteristics associated with living entities. It is also argued that by looking at interactive documentaries as living entities (Living Documentaries) we can see the relations that they forge and better understand the transformations they afford – on themselves and on the reality they portray. How does an interactive documentary change while it is being explored/used/co-created? To what extent do such dynamic relationships also change the user, the author, the code and all the elements that are linked through the interactive documentary? Those questions are discussed through the use of case studies chosen to illustrate the main interactive modes currently used in interactive documentaries. This thesis is a first step in exploring the multiple ways in which we participate, shape and are shaped by interactive documentaries. It argues that interactive documentaries are ways to construct and experience the real rather than to represent it.

This research focuses on the transactional nature of sexual and non-sexual relationships between certain young women in Cambodia described as ‘professional girlfriends’, and their ‘western boyfriends’. In this case, the term ‘transactional’ refers to the initial material motivation behind their interactions. While the majority of women are employed as bartenders or waitresses in tourist areas of Phnom Penh, outside observers tend to erroneously label them as ‘prostitutes’ or ‘broken women’ because of the gift-based nature of the intimate exchanges. Ethnographic evidence demonstrates, however, that they make up a diverse and nuanced group of individuals who engage in relationships more complex than simply ‘sex-for-cash’ exchanges, and often seek marriage and love in addition to material comforts. Though they do not view themselves as ‘prostitutes’, the distinction of the term ‘professional’ is used to emphasize that 1) they do rely on the formation of these relationships as a means of livelihood and their motivations are initially materially-based; 2) they engage in multiple overlapping transactional relationships, usually unbeknownst to their other partners; 3) there is a performance of intimacy, whereby the professed feelings of love and dedication lie somewhere on a continuum between genuine and feigned, and where the term ‘love’ itself carries multiple meanings. The research further reveals not only the stereotypes, contradictions, and structural constraints experienced by these young women, but also their entrepreneurialism, determination and creativity. Despite trauma related to recent political past, sexual violence, stigma, depression and self-harming, they use tools of global feminine youth culture, consumption, linguistic ability, ‘bar girl’ subculture, and interpersonal relationships to make socioeconomic advancements and find enjoyment in their lives. The practice of 'intimate ethnography' also illuminates the negotiation of intimacy and friendship between the participants and researcher, as well as the general materiality and exchange of everyday sex and relationships around the globe.

Research documents that breast cancer is the leading cause of death in Latina females. The exact numbers are unknown, but studies reveal that Latinas with breast cancer underuse recommended follow-up chemotherapy, decreasing their rates of survival. Although several factors may be responsible, cultural influences are a possible barrier. However, there is a gap in the literature about how culture affects decisions about breast cancer treatment. This focused ethnographic study examined the role of cultural beliefs and perceptions in the decision-making process for Latina women about whether or not to receive chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis. Drawing from Douglas' cultural theory of risk, archived in-depth interview data from 20 Latina breast cancer survivors were open coded into 56 primary codes which were then categorized into hierarchical trees of overarching themes and subcategories. Unique elements of the patterns observed in these data were analyzed and interpreted to explain how culture may influence Latina breast cancer patients to underuse recommended chemotherapy. The results of this qualitative analysis revealed that various cultural factors including social role-related themes, avoidance of information and communication, as well as employment and immigration status influenced the treatment decisions of Latina women. Analysis suggested that these cultural factors influenced both the amount and quality of information Latina women had available to make these decisions, as well as how they processed information to reach their decisions. Results of this study can accelerate social change by drawing increased attention to cultural differences in medical decision making, by informing the communication process between medical providers and their Latina patients, and thus eventually increasing survival from breast cancer among Latinas.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how three festivals function together to meet the Mission Statement goals of Holden Village, an isolated Lutheran renewal center located in the Cascade mountains in Washington State. The Holden Village Mission Statement states that Holden Village is organized to provide a community for healing, renewal, and refreshment of people through worship, intercession, study, humor, work, recreation, and conversation in a climate of mutual acceptance under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this community is to participate in the renewal for the church and the world by proclaiming the gospel of God's unconditional love in Jesus Christ; rehabilitating and equipping people for ministry in the world; lifting up a vision of God's kingdom of peace, justice, and wholeness; and celebrating the unity and the diversity of the church, all humanity, and all creation. (Lutz 1987:16-7) This ethnographic study provides an initial history of Holden from the days it operated as a copper mine, explains how Holden became a Lutheran renewal center, and explores the different ways the current villagers incorporate the Mission Statement into their everyday lives. After establishing the historical, cultural, and spatial context of Holden Village, I then analyze three festivals in detail vis-a-vis the Holden Village Mission Statement. To gain a better understanding of the function of these three festivals, and to place them within a broader context, I also provide a detailed description of the daily, weekly, and calendrical events at Holden. The three festivals analyzed in this thesis are the Fourth of July, Jubilee! Day, and Sun Over Buckskin Day. In my analysis of these three festivals, I rely on my role as a participant/observer in these festivals, journal entries written throughout my various volunteer experiences at Holden, letters I wrote to family and friends, recollections sparked by photographs, conversations with Holden friends and acquaintances, as well as relevant printed sources. The conclusions drawn from my fieldwork indicate that each of these three festivals contribute in some way to meeting the goals of the Holden Village Mission Statement. After my analysis of the three festivals, I briefly discuss some of the issues and concerns which have occurred at Holden during times of community stress and how the village has responded. My conclusions indicate that despite the problems which can arise at Holden, people leave Holden with a sense of renewal. This sense of renewal is facilitated by the daily, weekly, and calendrical events and festivals at Holden, all of which provide the villagers with the opportunity to celebrate themselves as members of a community.

In recent years the Midway School System in Midway, Tennessee (pseudonyms are used for the town, the school, and the participants in this research), has experienced a significant demographic change that has had both social and academic impacts. An influx of Hispanic students, primarily from Mexico, has brought students who are culturally different and for whom English is not the first language into a school that has traditionally been comprised of almost all white English speaking students. In the era of No Child Left Behind and other large scale educational reforms, this demographic change presents many new challenges to educators in this environment and although standardized test scores are available to track student achievement across certain population groups, rarely do reports or studies focus on the perspectives of teachers. This ethnographic study of teachers at Midway High School focused on teacher perspectives on the population change, how it has impacted their work as educators, and the positive and negative effects of educational reforms in multicultural classroom settings. This study involved observations and interviews of teachers in various content areas and of the school principal. The results highlight many social and academic concerns that are in many ways disregarded by No Child Left Behind and by state-imposed reform efforts implemented in recent years.

In recent years the Midway School System in Midway, Tennessee (pseudonyms are used for the town, the school, and the participants in this research), has experienced a significant demographic change that has had both social and academic impacts. An influx of Hispanic students, primarily from Mexico, has brought students who are culturally different and for whom English is not the first language into a school that has traditionally been comprised of almost all white English speaking students. In the era of No Child Left Behind and other large scale educational reforms, this demographic change presents many new challenges to educators in this environment and although standardized test scores are available to track student achievement across certain population groups, rarely do reports or studies focus on the perspectives of teachers. This ethnographic study of teachers at Midway High School focused on teacher perspectives on the population change, how it has impacted their work as educators, and the positive and negative effects of educational reforms in multicultural classroom settings. This study involved observations and interviews of teachers in various content areas and of the school principal. The results highlight many social and academic concerns that are in many ways disregarded by No Child Left Behind and by state-imposed reform efforts implemented in recent years.

In this thesis I use music as a starting point to animate the wider social experience of individuals and groups responding to rapid social change in South Africa. Social change in South Africa is linked in to discourses about identity that have been rigidly racialised over time. The cohorts and individuals who I engaged with cross, or are crossed by, the boundaries of racial categories in South Africa, either through family background or by the composition of cohort membership. The affective quality of music in people’s experience allows a more nuanced view of the changing dynamics of identity that is not accessed through other research methods. Music is used as a device to track biographies and stories about lived experiences of social change from the 1940’s to the first decade of the 21st Century in South Africa. Popular music cultures, including multi-racial church dances of the 1940’s, the 1970’s Johannesburg jazz and theatre scene and Kwaito, the electronic music that emerged in the 1990’s, provide a canvas to explore personal memories in very close connection to historical developments and groups of people ageing and working alongside each other in the inner western areas of Johannesburg, extending into other areas of the metropolis and the coastal city of Durban.The ethnography includes the life story of a member of a multi-racial family,the dynamic and biographies of a post-apartheid friendship cohort in Western Johannesburg, and an exploration of racial tension in a lap dancing club with a mixed clientele and staff base. The thesis draws on a period of 18 months of dedicated fieldwork in Johannesburg, where I was employed as a DJ in a number of night clubs, as well as many years living in the city as a South African national both as a child and an adult. The methodological implications of a close personal connection to the field site are thus also explored as a determinant of data gathering.

This thesis focuses on the transmission and role of poetry and song within the Somali community in London’s King’s Cross, which has developed since 1991 as Somalis have fled from violence in their homeland. I explore the relationship between past and present, continuity and change within Somali oral artforms, and the role of song and poetry in transmitting cultural knowledge. I also consider the potential of sound archives – specifically the British Library’s World and Traditional Music section, which neighbours the Somali community in King’s Cross – to support the continuation of oral tradition and impact upon individual and collective memory processes within diasporic communities. I demonstrate the ongoing role of poetry and song in mediating and communicating relationship with place and negotiating multiple subjectivities among Somalis in the diaspora, presenting examples of Somali community members in King’s Cross renewing, constructing and expressing sense of belonging to different locales and group identities through composing, listening to, discussing and performing song and poetry. With “proactive archiving” (drawing on Edmonson’s “proactive access” 2004: 20) at the heart of my methodology, I elucidate the relationship between song as an archival form and the place and practice of ethnomusicology sound archives, demonstrating the challenges and benefits of engaging diasporic communities with archival recordings. I consider the dynamism of the Somali oral network and the ongoing mobility and change experienced by Somali residents of King’s Cross, which stands in notable contradistinction to the permanence and fixity of the British Library, and I call for a move forward from the notion of proactive archiving to one of sustainable archiving – an approach that would empower community members to record and archive their personal musical heritage in a systematic and ongoing way.

The sasswood ordeal of poison presents a divinatory ritual which has been used in criminal cases by the traditional African of Sierra Leone and Liberia. For at least six hundred years, the peoples of these present countries have imposed this strictest of ordeals on their moral transgressors; and the practice has survived, despite the protestations of nineteenth-century missionaries and the encroachment of the western world. The investigation of the historical evidence of the sasswood ordeal among the West Atlantic tribes of Africa has three basic purposes. First, because of the paucity of interpretive data on the sasswood ordeal, the primary purpose of the thesis has been to more clearly delineate the meaning, characteristics, and functions of this poison ordeal as well as the swearing of oaths among the peoples of Sierra Leone and Liberia by amalgamating historical and more contemporaneous evidence. To this end, the distribution of the ordeal was considered; and descriptions were made of the various characteristics of the trait--complex--the poison’s action, the ritual and ceremonial aspects, the sasswood specialist, the accusations made in connection with the ordeal as well as indigenous myths of origin of the ordeal. Intracultural correlations were then presented to demonstrate the interdigitation of the elements in a culture in relation to the ordeal. Finally, some functions, other than the obvious guilt-determining aspect, were presented to demonstrate the various ways in which it had been used historically. A second purpose of this thesis was to demonstrate the intrinsically conservative: qualities of the ordeal as an aspect of religion and law. By assessing the impact of specific historical influences in the region of the West Atlantic tribes, such as Islam, colonialism, slavery, and urbanization, it was shown that no significant change had been witnessed through the six-hundred-year period of the historical record. In concluding this aspect, it was noted that certain "weaknesses" in the historical record—such as its being "piecemeal" and recorded only infrequently--caused problems in interpreting what appeared to be an intrinsically conservative nature of the sasswood ordeal. A third purpose, related to the second, was the application and assessment of "ethnohistoriographic" techniques, that is, those specific methods of historical scholarship utilized by the ethnographer in investigating past cultures. The limits of the use of the ethnohistoriographic techniques included observational bias (which was readily accountable, dealing as it did with hyperbole), the preoccupation with "sensational" data (which provided disparities, over-emphases in the historical record), as well as political motivations such that national prejudice frequently determined the "interpretation" placed on the ordeal. In addition, it was noted that because the sasswood ordeal may be classified as "esoterica," the record for this practice was generally spotty; and this fact affected interpretations on the actual change manifested in the trait complex. The main contribution made by this study has been to afford future readers with a composite and relatively complete source of information on one specific type of poison ordeal practiced among the West Atlantic tribes of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Since gradually replacing red ochre as a dye in ancient Egypt, henna has been cultivated throughout the Middle East and North Africa Traditional uses dealing with body art and medicine were associated with traits commonly connected with the color red, the dichotomies of life and death, good and evil. Today, these traits have all but disappeared while henna's use as a cosmetic dye, an embellishment, has remained prevalent in some regions. There can be no doubt that many uses and symbolisms attached to uses have gone unrecorded, been forgotten, and are irretrievable. The purpose of this research was to preserve that knowledge which still exists concerning previous uses and current practices in the Middle East and North Africa. Data gathered from publications indicates that the once traditional belief that the ability to purify and protect from evil was emanate in henna was acknowledged as recently as twenty years ago. Personal interviews conducted with fifty informants revealed that, with the exception of the Zar Cult in Egypt, present day users of henna make no association between henna and purification or protection from evil. During the Middle Ages, henna was a common ingredient in medicines believed to be beneficial in the curing of various skin diseases and internal discomforts. Knowledge of medicinal uses today is confined to a few regions where external application is still practiced, but internal use is rare. Henna's association with the rite s of passage and other occasions was once common. Staining the hands and feet of participants in ceremonies with henna was a tradition . Today the Night of Henna, a ritual dyeing of the bride-to-be's hands and feet, is the only widely recognized traditional use of henna. Henna as a cosmetic dye for hair may be gaining in popularity in the Middle East and North Africa due to it s use in modern products. Women in Morocco, Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula continue to use henna as a cosmetic stain on feet, hands and nails. This continued use may be attributed to pride in tradition and modern methods of application.